What Went Wrong? Former BioWare Dev Reveals the Main Reasons Behind Anthem's Failure

Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah has released a candid video detailing what happened during Anthem's development—and why the project ultimately failed. Although he was assigned as executive producer just 16 months before launch, Darrah said he still feels largely responsible for the final result. He emphasized that the development team worked incredibly hard, and despite all the challenges, Anthem did have some interesting ideas and strong elements.

Anthem’s origins date back to 2011, a time when EA leadership had become convinced that single-player games were no longer needed in the market. This put BioWare, a studio known for its story-driven single-player titles, in a tough spot. The idea behind Anthem was to create a BioWare-style game, but as a live-service title with ongoing content updates. The concept was greenlit by EA higher-ups, especially since they believed Anthem could generate profits on par with sports franchises like FIFA.

However, Anthem faced major issues from the start. The team was understaffed, with many developers still busy finishing Dragon Age: Inquisition and later Mass Effect: Andromeda. On top of that, the core concept of Anthem was difficult to communicate to the team. The goal was for the game to be unique and unlike anything else, but that made it hard to clearly explain what exactly they were building. As a result, Anthem gradually began to resemble existing games like Destiny and Borderlands.

After Casey Hudson’s departure, internal communication on the project deteriorated even further. The game became overly secretive within the company, which only made matters worse. Leadership struggled to accurately assess the situation, and the team didn’t get the feedback they needed.

Darrah recalled one instance where an early document claimed the game would feature six Javelins, but that number was essentially pulled out of thin air. It later became clear the team couldn’t deliver that many classes—they simply didn’t have the time or ideas to flesh out six distinct suits. When management was told there would only be four Javelins at launch, it caused major frustration and pressure, as if the project was falling apart—even though the original number was never realistic to begin with.

He also shared that in 2016, EA was pushing a strategy to turn all major franchises into “billion-dollar” properties, with proposals to release a new Dragon Age every two years. This approach directly influenced the decision to make Anthem a live-service game. Darrah said he asked three times to delay Anthem’s release—first to finish Andromeda, then to focus on Anthem—but all his requests were denied.

In the end, Anthem launched in February 2019 to mixed reviews. Critics cited repetitive gameplay, lack of content, and poor world-building. Active support ended in 2021, and the servers are set to be shut down completely in January 2026.